Camila Moraes lives and works between Colombia and Brazil. She keeps us up-to-date with news about film events that focus on European films and their directors in the South American continent.

13 February, 2009

Werner Herzog in love with Peru

One of the most important and active German filmmakers alive, Werner Herzog seems always ready to extol Peru. In the country for the fourth time to work on his movies, the director recently nominated to the Oscar in 2008 for “Encounters at the end of the world” went to Cusco to shoot a sequence for “My Son, my son, what have ye done”, a horror movie to be launched in 2010 with David Lynch’s production and the actor Michael Shannon playing the main role.

“Peru is a paradise for a filmmaker”, said Herzog in an exclusive interview for Oscar García published in “Somos” magazine. “It has very strong history and culture, besides wonderful landscapes, beaches, mountains and forests. It’s five countries in one”. Among the movies Herzog has visited Peru for are “Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes” (1972) and “Fitzcarraldo” (1981), where Klaus Kisnki plays a rubber undertaker that decides to build a boat in the middle of the jungle.

This time, the adventurous director wanted to shoot some scenes in the Urubamba river, “one of the most dangerous in the world” – he declared. “I am working in this movie that we are going to start filming soon. This great sequence that takes place in the Urubamba river had to be done now, because it’s even stronger in January. So I decided to come, invited by my friend José Koechlin, who helped organize this trip over night. He has always been my ambassador”.

See Herzog’s comments on filming "Fitzcarraldo" in the Peruvian jungle in You Tube: